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But after she recovered from the initial shock, the actor’s mother, Jillian Jordan, proceeded to send out a mass e-mail to family members to caution them about the scene.

Her missive: “I would like to inform you that Jason has chosen to do full-frontal nudity. However, it is not gratuitous and is essential to the plot.”

But with the advantage of hindsight, Segel explained in a recent New York Times interview that shedding all his clothes was completely essential to the plot of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

“One of the pitfalls of a romantic comedy is that you know how it’s going to end,” he said. “The guy and the girl on the poster are going to end up together. I felt like if the main guy showed his penis, you’re forced to sit back and say, ‘I have no idea what’s going to happen in this movie.’ ”

Coming off his nine-season run on How I Met Your Mother, Segel stars next in the big-screen comedy Sex Tape, in which he plays opposite Cameron Diaz as a suburban married couple who decide to spice up their marriage by, you guessed it, making their own sex tape (which naturally leaks online).

As the title suggests, and the risqué trailer confirms, there is a tremendous amount of exposed flesh on display in Sex Tape – by both Diaz and Segel – but such sacrifices simply come with the comedic territory.

“We share a mentality that, when it comes to comedy, the bottom line is it being as funny as it can possibly be,” said Segel in the Times interview. “And that involves being pride-free. That could have been awkward with a different partnership, but we laughed so much more than we cringed.”

We can only assume Segel gave his mother advance warning this time.

TRUE LOVE

Making the trip to Canada helped Lorde’s parents finally get hitched. One day after her performance at the MuchMusic Video Awards – where her parents watched from the front row – the Grammy-winning singer went on Twitter (@lordemusic) to share some touching personal news. Her tweet: “BEST DAY. Went to Niagara Falls – my dad proposed to my mum after almost 30 years together.” Lorde’s father, Vic O’Connor, is a civil engineer in his native New Zealand and her mother, Sonja Yelich, is a poet. Lorde followed the announcement with no less than a dozen emoticons, including a rose, a diamond ring and various smiley faces. And for the benefit of her 1.76-million Twitter followers, Lorde referenced the irony of the “I’ve never seen a diamond in the flesh” lyric from her international hit Royals with her follow-up tweet: “Inevitable response yes I know I have seen a diamond now.”

Stand back: Brian Williams is rapping again. Monday night’s edition of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon featured yet another video taking the veteran news anchor’s words from NBC Nightly News and editing them to make it appear as though Williams was rapping a popular song. This time, Williams was shown performing the cheeky rap standard Baby Got Back, which was originally released in 1992 by the rapper known as Sir Mix-a-Lot. The new song also featured brief appearances from NBC on-air personalities Kathie Lee Gifford, Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie in the chorus. Previous Tonight Show video-mashups have featured Williams rapping the songs Gin and Juice and Rapper’s Delight.

Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa will play Aquaman in the Batman Vs Superman movie. The hulking actor, who played Khal Drogo in the first season of Thrones, has signed a deal to portray the amphibian superhero in the upcoming action-adventure flick being directed by Zack Snyder. Set for release for mid-2016, Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice will feature Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavill as Superman and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman.

Slowly but surely, Tracy Morgan is on the mend. The ex-30 Rock star has been upgraded from critical to fair condition by the New Jersey hospital where he’s recovering from injuries sustained in a horrific car accident on June 7. The accident claimed the life of veteran comedian James McNair and left five others, including Morgan, seriously injured. According to Us Weekly, Morgan suffered a broken leg, a broken nose and broken ribs in the accident, but is already showing remarkable progress in rebounding from his injuries. “His personality is certainly starting to come back as well,” said a rep for Morgan.

George R.R. Martin recently threw out the first pitch at a minor-league baseball game. The genial Game of Thrones author put on his best suspenders and New York Mets baseball cap to perform the honour at an Albuquerque Isotopes home game in New Mexico last weekend. Martin walked onto the field to the accompaniment of the Game of Thrones theme music and, based on brief footage of the event, managed to throw the ball directly to the Isotopes catcher without incident.